Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Some people
react to working alongside slackers by lowering their own standards --
figuring that there's no reason for them to work hard when clearly no
one is going to intervene if they don't. Other people react to it by
getting increasingly agitated and resentful, which is where I think
you are right now. Neither of those are particularly good for you,
though. The first ends up harming your own professional reputation and
comes with opportunity costs down the road. The second is terrible for
your mental health and day-to-day quality of life.

Instead,
I'd try reframing it in your head. I know it must feel like your
co-worker isn't getting any negative consequences for her behavior,
but that's almost certainly not true. There's at least one unavoidable
consequence, which is that she's building a terrible reputation for
herself. Even if your boss is clueless, other people around your
colleague are seeing her behavior. At a minimum, she's missing out
on the reputation-building that doing good work will provide, but it's
also pretty likely that people are actively forming negative
impressions of her. You, on the other hand, are presumably creating a
strong reputation for yourself, one that will pay off for you
later on when you're looking for jobs in the future. Don't
underestimate how valuable that is. [bold added]

This
solution elegantly avoids both the career and mental health pitfalls
of the two most common kinds of reaction to this common
problem.